Avenue Business Centre on expansion mode

KUALA LUMPUR: Local budget office solutions provider Avenue Business Centre, which has 13 centres in the Klang Valley currently, plans to open seven more centres in town to meet its target of having 20 centres operational by the end of 2014.
Its marketing cum business centre manager Yasmin Haron (pix) told SunBiz the company has spent RM10 million in 2013 and 2014 to buy and renovate four properties, namely in SetiaWalk, Puchong (8,500 sq ft), Menara Choy Fook On, Petaling Jaya (13,000 sq ft), Plaza Dwitasik, Cheras (3,000 sq ft) and Plaza Damas, Sri Hartamas (6,000 sq ft) to convert them into business centres.
"These centres are expected to start operations in six months," she said in an interview with SunBiz, adding that the company is also working on acquiring the remaining three properties for the year.
Avenue opened its first business centre in Megan Avenue 1 in 2006 and has invested RM60 million in 13 of its properties, totaling over 400 office suites. On an average, it buys about four to six properties a year where all business centres are privately-owned properties.
Yasmin said Avenue's founder has a property division that buys and sells property, making this advantageous for the company. Avenue's founder also started job search portal JenJobs in 2000 prior to the business centres.
"All of our major competitors for business centres are from the US and UK and we're the only Malaysian company that has 13 business centres. The other local players usually have just one or two centres. As a local company, our rates are competitive because we have many centres. Our facilities are also new," said Yasmin.
At the moment, Avenue is concentrating its presence in the Klang Valley, especially in prime areas with amenities and public transport.
"We plan to venture overseas in five to 10 years. We won't stop in Malaysia. Even now, we advertise our services abroad and the future plan is to be internationally recognised," she said.
Business centres, also known as executive suites or serviced offices, are ideal locations for individual and companies expanding or relocating, new ventures, home-based businesses, travelling professionals, companies needing a local presence or anyone concerned with cost containment who still desires a professional and established image.
Yasmin said success stories of converting vacant properties include the business centres in Sunway Mentari Business Park and Phileo Damansara 1, where these properties were vacant for over two years.
"After we bought and converted these properties into business centres, the occupancy is now 80%," she said, adding that one month after renovating its Metropolitan Square centre, occupancy rate has been well over 60%.
She said 1 Mont Kiara has the highest occupancy of over 80% weekly while the biggest business centre is its Megan Avenue branch with 95 office suites.
Among the services that Avenue Business Centre offers include fully furnished serviced office suites, meeting and conference rooms, open workstations, business lounge, dedicated telephone and fax line, professional telephone answering service, prime business address, mail handling and fibre broadband internet.
Yasmin said Avenue's tenants are mainly expatriates, small and medium enterprises and companies that branch out from their headquarters, usually renting the office suites for six months to a year.
"Tenants can access our business centres 24/7. Neither do they need to pay for the high renovation costs of setting up an office, nor utility bills. They only pay for the rental, where prices for an instant office start from RM650 per month and virtual office from RM80 per month. Our centres also come with premium (location) addresses."
The Avenue Business Centre membership card allows members usage of facilities in seven Avenue Business Centres at Plaza Sentral, Megan Avenue, 1 Mont Kiara, Phileo Damansara 1, Phileo Damansara 2, Sunway Mentari and Metropolitan Square, by paying a yearly fee.
Yasmin said as tenants come in and out, filling the space of its office suites is a challenge. Hence it needs to have high occupancy.
"We also can't buy properties that are too expensive as we need to turn them into business centres, especially in prime areas where the value of properties will be higher. Our rental fees (to customers) are low so we have to consider all these before we commit to buy a property."